The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-12-15
as THINE HEART RIGHT"
Sunday Morning Services in the Brook
lyn Tabernacle.


Our Nature An Atwlst and AsIcew and
UnjOintedTThe Moro We Think About
Heavenly Things the Better.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 4.--This is sacramental
day in Brooklyn Tabernacle. The more
than 1000 communicate members and
many strangers from all parts of the world
make it q memorable scene. New mem
bers were received and some Of them were
baptized this morning.
The con regation, led by organ and cor
net, sang:
Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church Of God
Be saved to sin no more.
The Rev. T. De Witt TalmaRe, D. D.,
preached. His subject was "Salutation
from the Chariot, " and his text II. Kings
4. l5: "Is thine heart right2"
With mettled horses at full speed, for
he was celebrated for fast driving, Jehu,
the warrior and king, returns from battle.
But seeing Jehonadab, an acquaintance.
by the wayside, he shouts "Whoa! whoal"
to the lathered span. Then, leaning over
TO Jehonadab, Jehu salutes him in the
words of the text-Vords not more ap-
propriate for that hour and that place than
fer this hour and place.
Is thine heart rightp should like to
hear of your physical health. Well my
self, like to have everybody else we'll;
and so might ask: Is your eyesight right,
your hearing right, your nerves right,
your lungs right, your entire body right?
the more important spiritual conditions.
1 should like to hear of your financial
welfare. want everybody to have plenty
of money, ample apparel, large storehouse,
and comfortable residence. And 1 might
ask: Is your business right, your income
right, your worldly surroundings right?
But what are these financial questions
compared with the inquiry as to whether
you have been able to pay your debts to
God; as to whether you are running your
self by the long system Of the soul?
Ihave known men 10 have no more than
one loaf of bread at time, and yet to own
q government bond of Heaven worth more
than the whole material universe.
The question 1 ask you to-day is not in
regard to your habits. make no inquiry
about your integrity, or you chastity, or
your sobriety. do not mean to stand on
the outside of the gate and ring the bell;
but coming up the steps 1 open the door
and come to the private apartment of the
soul; and with the earnestness of man
that must give an account for his days
work, cry out, o man, o woman inn
mortal: Is thine heart right?
Twill not insult you by an argument to
prove that we are by nature all wrong. If
there be q factory explosion and the
smoke stack be upset, and the wheels be
broken in two, and the engine unjointed,
and the penderous bars be twisted, and
man should look in and say that nothing
was the matter, you would pronounce him
fool. Well, it needs no acumen to dis
cover that cur nature is all atwist and
askew and unjointed. The thing doesn't
work right. The biggest trouble we have
in the world is with our souls.
Men sometimes say that though their
lives may not be Just right, their heart is
ell right. Impossible A farmer never
puts the poorest apples on top of his bar
rel; nor does the merchant place the mean
est goods in the show window. The best
part of us is our outward life. do not
stop to discuss whether we all fell in Adam,
for we have been our own Adam, and have
all eaten of the forbidden fruit, and have
been turned ont of the paradise of holi-
ness and peace; and though the flaming
sword that stood at the gate to keep us out
has changed position and comes behind to
drive us in, we will not go.
The Bible account of us is not exagger-
Rted when it says that we are poor and
wretched and miserable and blind and
naked. Poor: the wretch that stands shiv-
ering on our doorstep on a cold day is not
30 much in need of bread as we are Of spir-
itual help. Blind: why, the man whose
eyes perished in the powder blast, and
who for these ten years has gone feeling
his way from street to street, is not in such
utter darkness as we. Naked: why, there
is not one rag of holiness left to hide the
shame of our sin. Sick: why, the leprosy
has eaten into the head and the heart and
the hands and the feet. and the marasmus
of an everlasting wasting away has already
seized on some of us.
But the meanest thing for man to do
is to discourse about an evil witheur point
ing a way to have il remedied. speak of
the thirst Of your hot tongue only that
may show You the living stream that drops
crystalline and sparkling from the Rock Of
Ages, and pours a river Of gladness at your
feet. If show you the rents in your coat,
il is only because the door of Gods ward
robe now swings open, and here is robe,
white with the fleece of the Lamb of God,
and Of a cut and make that an angel would
not be ashamed to wear. If 1 snatch from
you the black, moldy bread that you are
munching, it is only to give you the bread
made out of the finest wheat that grows on
the celestial hills, and baked in the fires of
the cross, and one crumb of which would
be enough to make all Heaven q banquet.
Hear it, one and all, and tell it to your
friends when you go home, that the Lord
Jesus Christ can make the heart right.
First we need repenting heart. If
the last ten, twenty, or forty years of
we have been going on the wrong way,
time that we turned around and starte
the opposite direction. II we offend
friends we are glad to apologize. God .
our best friend, and yet how many of US
have never apologized for the wrongs we
have done Himl
There is nothing that we so much d
to get rid of as sin. 1t is a horrible bias
monster. 1t polluted Eden. 1t killed
Christ. It has blasted the world. Men
keep dogs in kennels, and rabbits in q
warren, and cattle in pen. What a man
that would be who would shut them up in
his parlor. But this foul dog of sin, and
these herds of transgression, we have en-
tertained for many a long year in our heart,
which should be the cleanest, brightest
room in all our nature. Out with the vile
herdl Begone, ye befoulers of an immor
tai nature! Turn out the beasts and let
Christ come inl
A heather came to an early Christian
who had the reputation of curing diseases.
The Christian said: "You must have all
your Idols destroyed" The heathen gave
to the Christian the key to his house. that
he might go in and destroy the idols. He
battered to pieces all he saw, but still the
man did not get we'll. The Christian said
to him: "There must be some idol in your
house not yet destroyed" The heathen
confessed that there was one idol of beaten
gold that he could not bear to give up.
After a while, when that was destroyed, in
answer to the prayer Of the Christian the
sick man got we'll.
Many man has awakened in his diving